Saturday, September 29, 2007

Goal 1: Retirement!

One of my big goals is to grow my retirement as much and as quickly as possible. I don't have a magic number that I think I must reach by a certain date in order to retire. I do however have an amounts that I will be happy to reach as milestones on my path towards retirement. The first amount I want to reach is the $5,000 mark and then the $10,000 mark.

Currently I have just over $2,000 in my IRA. I am now eligible to participate in my 401k and have decided to put in 5% of my salary in order to get my full company match which will amount to 4% of my salary. Currently that means that starting this month (October) my accounts will increase by about $420 a month not including any capital gains/losses. A quick calculation and this gives me about $3,260 at the end of this year. At the end of 2008 I hope to have over $8,300. Using a quick savings calculator with a return of 8%, in 30 years at the age of 55 I can hope to have $611,717. This number should be higher as my salary grows. If I save another 10 years until the age of 65, I can hope to have $1,396,302. With an ultimate goal of over $1,000,000, I am getting a good start. Once I can afford it I would like to increase my contributions to my retirement accounts but for now, I am feeling pretty good that I am on my way to reaching a good retirement.

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